Sony Corp. has agreed to purchase a plant in northern Japan from major semiconductor maker Renesas Electronic Corp. for about $73 million on March 31, according to the two companies.

Sony Semiconductor Corp., a Sony unit, will take over some 80 percent of the about 680 workers as of last Oct. 1 at the Tsuruoka semiconductor plant in Yamagata Prefecture to produce image sensors for smartphones and cameras.

The Sony unit will set up the Yamagata Technology Center at the plant on March 31 and invest some $367 million on semiconductor manufacturing equipment for producing CMOS image sensors by March 2016.

The investment is part of Sony Semiconductor’s plan to boost its total monthly CMOS-image sensor production capacity to 75,000 300-millimeter wafers from the current 60,000, Sony says.

Sony provides Apple Inc. with these sensors for its iPhone smartphones.

Release Date: January 29, 2014
Source: The Associated Press